Nobody thinks it's going to be a very pleasant evening for Democrats, but how bad will it be on Tuesday night?

As Nathan Gonzales of The Rothenberg Political Report mentioned earlier today, we're "past the point" of talking about whether 2010 will be a so-called "wave" election year for Republicans. Every reputable elections predictor has Republicans gaingin at least 50 House seats, far more than the 39 they need to take over, along with between six and eight Senate seats. Click here for a roundup of predictions.

To get a sense of just how drastically the House and Senate will tip in the GOP's favor, here's a list of bellwether races to watch on Election Night.

Polls will close early in these races--they're all in Eastern, Midwestern, or Southern states where the polls close between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET.--so follow them early on for a sense of how things will go throughout the rest of the night. If networks declare GOP winners quickly (i.e., soon after polls close), then watch out. It's going to be a big night for Republicans.

Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) vs. Jackie Walorski - Indiana District 2. Donnelly is a pro-gun, pro-life Democrat who came into Congress in 2006, as did so many who are facing tough re-election prospects this year. He's facing off against the Tea-Party-esque Walorski, a GOP recruit who did a respectable job fundraising and, at one point, had to soften her aggressive, Sarah-Palin-style tone.

Part of Donnelly's South Bend district is in the Central Time Zone, so returns will come in at 7 p.m. ET. Donnelly leads in this race by five percentage points, but he's polling under 50 percent, which, as a rule of thumb, is a troubling sign for an incumbent.

Rep. Ben Chandler (D) vs. Andy Barr - Kentucky District 6. Democrats have attacked Barr, a National Republican Congressional Committee "Young Gun" candidate, with TV ads
calling him a "liar" and a "convicted...criminal" for pleading guilty
to using a fake ID in Florida when he was 18 and failing to disclose
this when applying for a government job. But perhaps it won't matter.

This is another district where a Democratic incumbent leads--in this case by four percentage points--but polls under 50 percent. Chandler faces a serious threat, and if voters really are as fed up as we're led to believe, Democrats may not be able to win close races across the country even if they've exploited their opponents' flaws and leveled successful attacks.

Richard Blumenthal vs. Linda McMahon - Connecticut Senate. It's
less significant to talk about Senate bellwethers, and here's why: There
are only a few competitive Senate races happening on Tuesday, and
there's no shortage of polling on them. At this point, we know which
races are close and who's supposed to win them. But the Connecticut race
is worth looking at as an indicator.

When polls close in Connecticut at 8 p.m. ET,
returns will have started coming in for competitive races in West
Virginia and Kentucky. Other competitive races--in Nevada, California,
Washington, Colorado, and Alaska, for instance--will turn in their results later.

Democrats
are supposed to win this race, but if they don't, it's likely the GOP
will win more than its share of Senate races Tuesday night. Blumenthal enjoys an 8-percentage-point in a Quinnipiac
University poll released Monday, but that's down from a 12-point advantage a
week before. McMahon, formerly the CEO of WWE, has spent over $40 million on this
race, while Blumenthal has attacked her over the WWE's racy storylines
and its problems with steroid use. Given that Democrats are supposed to
hold onto this seat, it's a bad sign if McMahon comes close, signaling trouble even for Democrats thought to be in good shape. A McMahon victory give Republicans an outside shot at taking control of the Senate. If Blumenthal holds
on for an easy win, it's a sign that things perhaps aren't so dire for
the party.

Rep. Heath Shuler (D) vs. Jeff Miller - North Carolina District 11. Shuler was one of the Democratic darlings of 2006. A former NFL quarterback with immense popularity and name recognition in his home district in Western North Carolina, his victory was a sign that conservative Democrats could win in traditionally deep-red parts of the country.

Now Shuler is running away from his party leadership, about as hard as anyone. During a radio debate last week, he promised to challenge Nancy Pelosi for the Speaker's gavel if another viable alternative didn't arise. He voted yes on cap-and-trade, no on health care. If Shuler goes down when polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET, it's a sign that conservative Democrats won't be able to get away from associations with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama, no matter how hard they try.

Rep. Ron Klein (D) vs. Allen West - Florida District 22. The beachfront property in Boca Raton and Ft. Lauderdale will see a rematch from 2008, and, and it's been one of the most expensive House races in the country. Klein won soundly with 54.7 percent of the vote last time around--but on Tuesday, the Republican West could seal up a victory moments after polls close at 7 p.m ET.

Klein won the district away from the GOP in 2006, after redistricting helped Republicans hold onto it for a decade by nudging Miami-Dade voters out of the picture. After two reasonably convincing wins, it looked as if Klein would keep this strip of beach in Democratic hands for many years to come.

But after Klein outspent West dramatically in 2008, the Republican has come back with a vengeance, already spending over eight times his 2008 total as of two weeks ago. Klein has poured money in, too, outspending West $4.85 million to $4.38 million--and that doesn't count spending by both Democratic- and Republican-aligned groups, including American Crossroads. It usually only takes a million or two--and sometimes less--in direct campaign spending to win a House seat, depending on the location, but the dollars have been flying in Florida's 22nd. West led this race by 3 percent as of 10 days ago, so if Klein loses as that Sunshine State poll predicted, watch his margin of defeat--this district could showcase the impact of money attracted by Republicans in this optimistic year for them.

**Bellwether Bonus: Barney Frank.** Rep. Barney Frank (D), outspoken chairman of the Financial Services Committee and bogeyman to the right, should win easily. He's been safe for many years in his New Bedford, Massachusetts seat, and it's difficult to imagine him losing this time around to Republican challenger Sean Bielat--so difficult, in fact, that I will actually have to apologize to his spokesman for writing this. But some people are talking about a contest here. A local WPRI poll showed Frank polling just under 50 percent in a "tight race" 10 days ago--a 12-percent lead apparently qualifying as "tight." Given that Frank is probably going to win, and should win easily, the question is: Wow easy will it be? Keep an eye on the returns in Massachusetts' 4th District.

Bottom line: If Barney Frank finds himself in even a remotely close race when polls close at 8 p.m. ET, brace yourselves. Things will not look good for Democrats in close races out West. If Frank loses, Republicans will likely gain over 70 seats.

Most Popular

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

We can all agree that Millennials are the worst. But what is a Millennial? A fight between The New York Times and Slate inspired us to try and figure that out.

This article is from the archive of our partner .

We can all agree that Millennials are the worst. But what is a Millennial? A fight between The New York Times and Slate inspired us to try and figure that out.

After the Times ran a column giving employers tips on how to deal with Millennials (for example, they need regular naps) (I didn't read the article; that's from my experience), Slate's Amanda Hess pointed out that the examples the Times used to demonstrate their points weren't actually Millennials. Some of the people quoted in the article were as old as 37, which was considered elderly only 5,000 short years ago.

The age of employees of The Wire, the humble website you are currently reading, varies widely, meaning that we too have in the past wondered where the boundaries for the various generations were drawn. Is a 37-year-old who gets text-message condolences from her friends a Millennial by virtue of her behavior? Or is she some other generation, because she was born super long ago? (Sorry, 37-year-old Rebecca Soffer who is a friend of a friend of mine and who I met once! You're not actually that old!) Since The Wire is committed to Broadening Human Understanding™, I decided to find out where generational boundaries are drawn.